New MPs: Time to 'learn ropes'

Labour's star newcomer Shane Jones had been touted for the fast-track into Cabinet - now he must just wait and see.

The new MP, who was also approached to run for National, vividly recalls its former leader Bill English telling him what a pleasure it would be to see him "waste away" on the backbenches.

"I've no idea whether Bill English feels he is prescient, because he certainly didn't foretell his own demise," Jones said.

The Harvard-educated 46-year-old, from Ngai Takoto and Te Aupouri in the Far North, was once a protester and a renegade Waitangi Fisheries Commission member whose home was raided by police in a search for leaked documents.

But as commission and Sealord chairman his role in allocating nearly $1 billion in Maori fisheries assets endeared him to Helen Clark's Government, and he says he will be taking a "substantial" pay-cut to enter Parliament.

Wife Ngareta said Parliament would be a big change for the family: with seven children including teenage boys: inevitably one of them would "run afoul" at some point and she had warned that it would reflect back on their father.

Jones has been tipped by the likes of prime ministerial confidante Sir Graham Latimer as the first Maori premier.

He was philosophical about the uncertainty: "It's not quite what I had in mind as the ideal starting place for a career in politics, but it's the hand I've been dealt, so watch this space."

He hoped to build expertise in economic policy and race relations, to keep a close eye on National and NZ First, ensuring the protection of the Maori electorates, language and Treaty settlement process.

And he had a message for Don Brash: "Although he complains about 600 Kiwis buggering off overseas every week, the way he's carrying on he's likely to see 6000 Maori arriving every week to make his life hell."

- HERALD ON SUNDAY